Sixteen 17th century musketeers finally completed.

You'll need to scroll down to see the lot. First for the Blue Regiment;

 And now the Green one;

These are all from Bicorne Miniatures and they match perfectly in terms of size with the growing range from Bloody Miniatures. Below you can see these two groups augmented to form two units of 12 figures by mixing them with some Bloody Miniatures figures;

I see the Blue regiment as being some kind of "elite" unit, maybe the lifeguard of a general or maybe the guards of a major town or city. The Green (and Brown) regiment is clearly a lesser formation, maybe a trained band, a regiment raised by a local landowner or a unit of militia. They have a much less uniform appearance but as we all know appearances can be deceptive. They could equally be experienced and battle-hardened mercenaries.

I've been working away on these for ages, but I kept putting them to one side to work on other things and, finally they are finished and I am really happy with how they have turned out. I think that they are of a reasonable gaming table standard and easily pass the "how do they look from a metre away test".

Anyway, I am now one step closer to have a small force for The Pikeman's Lament or some other Pike and Shot period set of rules. I have three units of Bicorne pikemen to work on now.

These three groups complete my Spanish Guerrilla force

 Here are the remaining 18 figures, in three groups of six;

They are a mixture of Front Rank and North Star (from their Muskets and Tomahawks Napoleonic range). They look considerably less "military" that the first two groups, so they can represent civilians who have taken up arms and become guerrilleros rather than regulars who have joined the Little War against Napoleon.

So, I have now five skirmishing groups and four leaders to form a core force for Sharp Practice, but I intend to add in two groups of skirmishing 95th Rifles to create a bigger force of around 85pts. I'm thinking of it as being a deliberately "literary" force, based on the kind of units found in Bernard Cornwell's classic Peninsular War Sharpe books.

First two groups of Spanish Guerrillas

These two groups of six are all 28mm Perry Miniatures;

They are a mixture of two different Perry sets. One is scruffy-looking infantry in a mix of uniforms and civilian clothes and the other is infantry with British-supplied equipment and Spanish uniforms. I deliberately avoided any real uniformity in uniform colours, because I wanted them to look like stragglers or deserters from a variety of regiments. I'll admit to being pretty happy with how they have turned out.

I have three more groups of six to varnish and I'll photograph them tomorrow and post them up.

Keeping the Spanish theme going...........

Here is the start of my next Sharp Practice project; Napoleonic Spanish Guerrillas.

I have started with four leaders. From left to right they are from Bad Squiddo, North Star, Front Rank and Perry Miniatures. What I like here is the huge variety of different styles of the figures, giving me an opportunity to paint them all differently. The Perry figure on the right is an actual Spanish infantry officer, but the guerrilla bands included members from all over the place, including from the Spanish armies.

I now have to think of suitable names for each of them.

I am currently working on 30 guerrilla figures, which will give me five groups of six to fit in with Sharp Practice rules. The first two groups are nearly finished and they are also Perry Spanish fusilier figures, all wearing a mixture of uniforms and civilian clothing. The others three groups will be a mixture of North Star and Front Rank and have a far more non-military appearance. 

Spanish Unit For The Silver Bayonet

I haven't posted anything for over three weeks, but I have been busy, mostly working on Napoleonic Spanish types. First up, is my Spanish unit for The Silver Bayonet, a set of rules for Gothic Horror during the Napoleonic Wars. There are eight figures in total.

These four above are the more "regular" troops, an Artilleryman, an Officer, an Infantryman and a Sapper. Below are four "irregular" types, a Guerrilla, a Veteran Hunter, a Champion of the Faith and a Swordsman. All these eight labels have specific meanings within the rules.

The figures are from the official range of figures produced by North Star and I have to say that they are excellent sculpts with lots of character and nice details. I decided when painting them that I wasn't going to get too bothered over making them specific to any particular Spanish units of the period. After all, it is basically a fantasy game, although some of these could be used in historical Peninsular War games, probably as characters or specialists for Sharp Practice, although they are quite chunky and on the large size compared with Perry figures, for example.

Anyway, I now finally have a force to use for games of The Silver Bayonet. I'll have to find time to paint up the French and British sets at some point.